Blades of Arris: Falkion
Blades of Arris: Falkion
Final book in the award-winning series
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 21+ 5-star reviews
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Synopsis
Synopsis
Our relationship is complex.
His ancestors took over my planet.
I’m descended from the few who survived.
To say we have issues is to put it mildly.
He wants me off his warship.
I’m more than happy to oblige.
The ones who stay end up love-sick. Bound to one of them for all time.
I’m immune.
Luckily.
Their sickness will never be mine.
Except...
I might be immune, but he’s not.
Now the worst thing has happened.
I’m panicking and out of time.
My enemy is hunting.
Obsessed with one prey.
Me.
And somehow this might actually be fine...
Falkion and Zeerah's story completes the award-winning, tumultuous science fiction romance series! The Blades of Arris series contains unique alien shifters, fierce passion, and couples who defy everything to be together. Although it continues plot lines from previous novels, this complete, self-contained, epic happily-ever-after can be read as a stand-alone novel.
Look Inside
Look Inside
CHAPTER ONE
~FALKION~
They attack without warning.
Zeerah sits in the middle of the mess hall, her hood pulled back just enough to allow her spoon to reach her brown, human lips. Her shoulders hunch to disguise the fact that she’s half a head taller than the brutal gray-skinned Arrisan soldiers crunching nutrient cubes all around her. They are the ones she perceives are a danger.
She is wrong.
Without warning, gigantic monsters cut through the wall.
Pandemonium ensues.
Arrisans scream and run for their lives.
She runs too. Out of the mess, down the hallway. Her legs are longer. She’s faster.
But ahead of her, more slavering monsters burst through the walls.
One lunges for her.
She dodges.
The monster impales the Arrisan behind her. He makes a terrible gurgling sound as the monster drags him into its gaping maw.
She rounds the corner and ducks into a supply closet.
The screams cut off horribly.
It grows dangerously quiet.
She breathes raggedly.
Something lumbers outside her door.
A wet sound, like drool, spatters on the floor near her feet.
She holds her breath.
It’s no use.
A knife-arm cuts through the closet door and lodges deep in her chest—
* * *
I gasp awake, cold sweat pouring off my nude gray body, and leap into a fighting stance—
My forehead cracks against the closed lid of my sleeping pod.
The sound reverberates inside my skull as the lid slides open.
I dive out, head still ringing, and land on my feet.
My silver falchion blade-bones eject from my wrists and stretch to the farthest edges of my chamber, slice the air, and seek enemies.
The whistle of atoms separating from my honed edges is reassuring. Familiar.
Zeerah is alive.
Oh.
Then, it was only a dream…?
I straighten and force myself to retract my blades. They glide into my black tattooed wrist sheaths, the skin of my forearms stretching to contain the biological metal, then shrinking until it’s back to a normal shape.
She is in the mess hall, my implant reports.
The very mess hall of my nightmare.
Fear tangs, metallic, on the back of my tongue.
I can’t catch my breath.
My private cabin has a disused air, and the chronometer says only twenty clicks have passed since I laid down.
Twenty clicks is my new limit, I guess.
I sling the loose fabric of my skinsuit around my neck. The high-tech suit contours itself and suctions to my body as I stride from the room, my door sealing behind me.
These halls are busy. Officers pivot out of my way.
As I pass the bridge, my second-in-command calls out, “Captain? Is everything all right? You just left for your resting shift…”
I switch to a jog.
Repairs are going well. I dodge engineering crews soldering in new panels and jump over the cannon blasts still pitting the floor.
Although my implant shows Zeerah’s exact location, I don’t need it.
When I think about stopping or averting my course, the thread that wraps around my heart and binds me unwillingly to her constricts. My organ feels like it’s turning white, blood squeezed out, and aches like it’s dying. Resist, and all I make is another scar, deepening the well-worn furrows.
I dive into the grav tube, arms at my sides and face pointed down for the fastest descent. The floors of my dreadnought, my pride and everything I once cared about, scream past. The grav tube clogs up around the heavily occupied lower quadrants. I angle between relaxed soldiers, giving them a jolt as they see who’s pushing through their space, and grab the handle to fly out into my chosen narrow hall.
It looks exactly like my dream.
I break into a run.
Soldiers lean out of my way as I leap-stride past them. The muscle-assists in my skinsuit propel me across a section of my dreadnought that I once barely knew, but now is more familiar to me than my own quarters. I reach the doorway to the lower quarters mess hall.
Zeerah’s sitting in a different spot than in my dream. Closer to the door, quicker to make a fast escape. Everything else is the same, including her quick, furtive glances as she eats, shoulders hunched, hood covering her face as much as possible while still allowing her spoon to reach her full lips.
I should turn around and leave.
Instead, the compulsion grips me more strongly now. She’s right in front of me, but I want to chew her up and put her inside me, or crack her open and wear her body as armor. Crazed images fill my addled brain as I stride into the room and stand in front of her.
She freezes midchew.
Her odd human eyes lift to mine.
Hers are a beautiful darkness, intriguing shadow-brown that rims her black irises, so different from the familiar silver of my people that they mesmerize me. Her nostrils flare.
I reach out to the hand that’s holding the spoon. The back of her hand is covered, like all of her, in a darker gray Arrisan skinsuit modified to fit her taller human form. “Can you…?”
My voice is rough. Broken.
She finishes her chewing and swallows, straightens and glances around. “Here? Now?”
I don’t want to answer. It’s obvious.
And she is of so little importance, her race is of such insignificance in our empire that she’s like a microscopic insect to me.
But like a microscopic insect, she’s gotten inside me and given me an incurable sickness.
I am reduced to begging.
Me. Youngest captain of the newest and best dreadnought in the empire-ruling Arrisan fleet.
Her. An insignificant human insect who is shaped like delicious mysteries and colored like the dusk between moons.
“Please.”
She heaves a long sigh and frowns at my outstretched hand. Then she twists her lips to the side—a creamier brown than the rest of her face, those full lips, with a hint of a lush pink interior—and flexes her fingers. Her gray skinsuit retracts up to her wrist.
I touch the back of her hand.
Her dark brown skin is soft and warm and real.
She is alive.
Her existence shoots a message to my brain like a weapon’s shot, piercing and true. Everything is okay. I can finally draw in a full breath. The thread releases, and blood flows back into my heart. The dream was only a dream. This is reality.
And I become aware of my surroundings.
Silence spreads from my entrance like the unexpected crack of a rifle. The eyes of the lower quadrant focus on us.
We are soldiers. We’re trained to fight and protect the empire.
Not to do whatever this is.
They don’t understand what they’re seeing.
To be fair, I don’t either.
But this is the only way I can get relief.
A strange, light-headed pinging sounds in my overstretched brain.
I must rest.
Whenever I close my eyes, the nightmares attack.
Except now.
My feet tingle and my legs disappear from my awareness. Warmth seeps up my body. Her softness is a tiny anchor, a threadline holding back my nightmares, and exhaustion cushions my skull.
I’ve been awake for longer than in any other period in my life, and that’s saying something.
I want to lie down on the ledge and close my eyes for a hundred Standard Years.
But if I move, she’ll run.
That’s a whole other problem for me.
Eh. I can sleep standing up.
She shifts.
Probably she’s lowered her head, positioned herself to draw away and conceal herself again. It’s a guess because my eyelids are firmly, thankfully sealed.
“Good enough?” she asks in a low voice. “For now? Okay?”
“Just wait,” I murmur as my consciousness shuts down in the middle of the lower quadrant mess hall. “A little bit…longer…”
I know why she wants to run.
We two are ensnared in the same trap.
She would do anything to escape me.
In my dream, the monsters were chasing her.
But to her, I’m the monster.
This ebook is currently in Kindle Unlimited, an exclusive program on Amazon. You can read it here: Kindle Unlimited single ebook or you can read the entire series in Kindle Unlimited in the beautiful Blades of Arris Complete Collection: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHZT3TDD/
* * *
Our relationship is complex.
His ancestors took over my planet.
I’m descended from the few who survived.
Now the worst thing has happened.
I’m panicking and out of time.
My enemy is hunting.
Obsessed with one prey.
Me.
And somehow this might actually be fine...
"Incredible final chapter! I can’t get enough of this series. And I’m sad this is the last book. Loose ends are beautifully wrapped up." ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Reader
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- Spice 4 out of 5
"A must read! It is not typical to have a series where every book is as great as the first. The world building, the characters. I am just so sad this is the end. Please consider more or a spinoff!" ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Reader
Sample from Chapter Five:
~ZEERAH~
Three kortans ago, Falkion was bonded to me against his will with a twisted mating spray.
And he’s finally figured out the way to get to me.
“Zeerah.” He comes to my door and knocks politely. Like he’s a human now, just with gray skin and silver eyes and black spikes on the tips of his ears. “You finished studying for the Needle-class. Do you want to practice flying one?”
My heart squeezes.
No, no.
No.
His drug is wearing off. Getting attached is pointless.
At first, he couldn’t allow me out of arm’s reach. Then, he couldn’t handle me being outside his line of sight. Finally, he couldn’t handle a separation longer than a few clicks.
Now, he can go clegs. Almost a full shift. I just need to stretch us apart a little more, and the bindings will snap. We’ll both be free.
I should definitely not go flying with him.
Not even to become an officially certified pilot of the empire, one of my impossible girlhood dreams.
He looks at me expectantly.
Oh, H. “I’m ready.”
He reaches out a hand. “Let’s go.”
My chest twists.
I do not take his hand. Distance, Zeerah, distance. I stride past him. “I know the way.”
He ambles beside me.
In the past, he’d argue. Insult me. Forcefully close our distance.
That was the drug, though.
He’s always been a relentless man, so I mustn’t react because he’s relentless in pursuing me.
Falkion takes me to engineering. The main engineering bay opens up in front of me. It’s massive, like standing on the street in Cloud City and staring up at the skyscrapers. I’ve never spent much time here. My supply officer gig didn’t require it.
Hundreds of ships dock on the different levels. Far below my entrance, parts of a hull sizzle as the engineers make repairs. This whole area is crawling with busyness and noise.
He signs out the small vessel, and we cross from the main grating to a miniature grav tube. I step into air and shoot up like I’m flying out of a cannon.
Falkion tugs me onto the correct level, about six floors up, and I wobble on the scaffolding. We stride past pristine, gleaming ships that dwarf us until we reach the tiny little two-person Needle-class.
Arrisan ships have teeth.
All the better for biting onto their targets.
Here, the bottom teeth seal to the dock. Only the color difference shows where they connect in a smooth zigzag fit.
I duck beneath the fangs and enter.
This is my first time in a Needle-class. It’s my first time in the captain’s seat since the Eruvisans wrecked my Harvester and my first time ever piloting a new, well-functioning Arrisan ship.
I tug the glass-like wall. It morphs beneath my fingertips, transforming into a console that surrounds and cups me. Controls appear on the armrests and across the panels above and below.
Falkion sits in the other console. I could run over and throw my arms around him and cry with thanks, but I strictly do not. He leans back, rests his ankle on his knee, and crosses his arms. Like me, he wears his hood down, fully protected in case of a sudden depressurization or other catastrophe.
My heart rate quickens.
This is a long way from launching out of a dusty airfield.
I follow the protocols to seal up the ship and undock us, then I wait attentively as an engineer on a small sled tows our ship through the bay, moving us around the hundreds of other ships docked here. She uncouples at the atmosphere veil.
My stomach pitches with excitement.
Here we go.
I ease forward.
We slide through the atmosphere veil.
Cables from the dreadnought’s massive guns and communications arrays dangle around our external passage like vipers. They automatically train on us, evaluate us as a target, and then rotate away.
We clear the obstacles, and space opens up around us.
My fingers dance over the unblemished dash.
The ship moves richly under me, so responsive.
I zoom away from the dreadnought. Away from the support ships, away from the battlefield, away from lessers-who-should-know-their-place and look-she-thinks-she’s-an-ally.
The stars are limitless.
This peace is beautiful.
I could keep going.
Just fly away.
Free.
Falkion makes a guttural noise, clears his throat, and shifts in his seat.
Ah, no. I guess I couldn’t.
Although, in the quiet moments, when the world is so peaceful and I can almost smell his electric male scent, I wonder if being stuck to him for the rest of my life would really be all that bad.
He’s almost human underneath that skinsuit. I’ve seen him nude. I think it would feel—
Ah! What am I thinking?
I check my angles and take evasive action, practicing the quick movements Needle-class ships are designed for, but mostly to evade my own thoughts.
But illicit feelings thrum below my belly…
I veer back toward the dreadnought.
It hangs in space like a massive jellyfish being eaten by a sea urchin.
Support ships, including a Starbreaker-class warship holding thousands, orbit the dreadnought like angry bees.
They’re so small in comparison, it’s crazy.
They’re also mostly here to study the sea urchin ship.
It’s an H-alien ship.
It popped out of the Vanadisan’s secret research base in the middle of their epic final battle, paralyzed and ate the other dreadnought, then came for us.
The Arrisans about had a massive empire-wide coronary.
They thought the H-aliens had come back from a thousand years ago to finish the job.
The Vanadisans actually just found it abandoned and got it working again, somehow. It gave them a massive psychological advantage.
Falkion missed it because he was out of his mind from their drug. We barely managed to deactivate it. It still drifted into our dreadnought.
If his blades can slice through almost any substance in the universe, the H-alien ship can slice through all the rest.
The Arrisans are obsessive about the H-aliens. They have a little indicator light on every ship in their empire, including this one, which will light up as soon as the real H-aliens are spotted.
I coast back into the main bay. An engineer tugs us back to our slip. I complete my docking procedures.
Falkion remains in his seat.
I consider leaning across and stroking his arm. Following the line up to his jaw. Pushing back the hood and looking him in the eyes.
Those pure, relentless silver eyes.
And thanking him so much for letting me pilot a ship again.
He takes a deep breath and leans forward, catches me looking at him.
Heat enfolds me.
Awareness streaks to my center.
I jolt to my feet, retract the control console, and head to the door. “Welp, thanks again. See you later.”
I lift my hand to the door controls.
He darts forward, impossibly fast, and blocks me. “How do you feel about me now?”
The electric scent of him makes my heart tremble.
It’s been over three kortans since he was sprayed.
Since he stuck himself to me.
And I can’t stop noticing the broadness of his inflexible jaw, the fierce sharpness of his cheeks. His silver eyes are so clear. Honest, and forthright like his blades, and very pure.
I want to lick that cheekbone. See how he reacts. Or maybe I just want to nibble on his lips. Same reason.
The rare women with Arrisan partners seem normal. Happy, even.
So, it’s possible to be happy with an Arrisan for a partner…
Ugh, this is why I have to get out of here.
“The flight is over,” I say, ignoring his question. “Time to go our separate ways.”
“I want to grow your desire for me, Zeerah.”
I swallow hard.
“I can’t take any more showers,” I say, as much for my benefit as for his. “I’ve shaved my head, scrubbed down to raw skin. I’d rip out my fingernails if that would help you.”
He frowns.
“Because this isn’t you. And I’m sorry, Falkion. I don’t know how else to help you.”
“If you desire me like a human…” His silver eyes fix on me, his logic as arrow-straight as his determination. “Then you will remain at my side.”
“But I can’t because you hate me.”
“No.”
“You do hate me.” Again, I remind myself as much as I remind him. “You just don’t remember.”
We’re stuck.
I hit the button to open the door of the small passenger shuttle. Its jagged lower teeth sink into the dock, melting seamlessly.
Falkion, who does not remember that he hates me, still blocks my exit. “Do this again tomorrow?”
Of course we’ll do this again tomorrow. I want to be a pilot more than anything.
If he would only scream at me like before, and growl and threaten to dismember me again, I could keep him at a distance.
“Maybe,” I mutter, avoiding his gaze. Which happens to cause me to glance back at the Needle-class ship’s main control panel.
The H-alien warning light suddenly glows a bright and deadly green...
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
"Reading the final story in this series is bittersweet. Loved this couple. Loved how the series wrapped up. This was one of my all time favorite series and I’m lost that there won’t be more." ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Reader
This series has been really fantastic, and the last book does not disappoint. The thing I love most about Starla’s stories is that I can always find some part of myself in her female characters. That ability has me invested in the story, escaping reality for a while." ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Reader
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